A Short Educational program for the working staff of a university hospital: An intriguing implementation strategy for palliative care.

Abstract

Background: Palliative care practice, aimed at improving psychosocial and physical quality of life without the aim of providing medical cure, is under development in our country. We aimed to reveal the implementation strategy and success of a short palliative care education program organised for health workers in our institution. Method: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted at the Palliative Care Research and Application Centre of Gaziosmanpaşa University in Tokat. As part of implementation strategy, an educational program for all nurses, technicians and other hospital staff (bureau personnel and etc.) was organised. A test about palliative care was conducted before and after the education program. 4 weeks later, the same test was delivered to hospital staff who can’t attend education program. The pre- and post-test results of attending staff and the test results of non-attending staff were compared and analysed via SPSS Statistic 20 program. Findings: There were 120 women (63,2%), 70 men (36,8%) participants in attending group and 42 women (45,2%), 51 men (54,8 %) participants in non-attending group. Rate of correct response to ‘Which of the following is not suitable for the definition of palliative care?’ question, increased 14,7 % and reached 55,8 % in attending group. The non-attending group expressed that they have learned palliative care from attending group with 73,7 % . Conclusions: This study showed that there is a high level of lack of knowledge about palliative care among healthcare workers and that a statistically significant level of awareness can be achieved via a brief education program.

Keywords

• palliative care
• education program
• hospital staff